Alignment of social and ecological structures increased the ability of river management

Eco-civilization: A complementary pathway rooted in theory and practice for global sustainable development

Eco-civilization, as a civilizational discourse led by China, implies the next stage of civilization after industrial civilization, the essence of which is to respect, conform to, and protect nature. Although the international community is paying more attention to eco-civilization, the existing literature still lacks a systematic discussion of which theories and practices underpin the construction of eco-civilization. Due to the ambiguity of eco-civilization, some even criticize it as being a form of purely partisan politics in China. By systematically reviewing its theoretical pillars, practical actions, and major achievements, this perspective paper argues that China's eco-civilization is not a partisan politics, but rather a legitimate, imperative pathway to global sustainable development rooted in complementary theory and practice, i.e., theories guide practices, and practices enrich theories. We highlight that the theoretical basis and practical actions of eco-civilization constitute a continual improvement process that permits diverse viewpoints and understanding, and any action exploring how to achieve a harmonious coexistence between humans and nature is consistent with the values of eco-civilization.

Leveraging the metacoupling framework for sustainability science and global sustainable development

Sustainability science seeks to understand human-nature interactions behind sustainability challenges, but has largely been place-based. Traditional sustainability efforts often solved problems in one place at the cost of other places, compromising global sustainability. The metacoupling framework offers a conceptual foundation and a holistic approach to integrating human-nature interactions within a place, as well as between adjacent places and between distant places worldwide. Its applications show broad utilities for advancing sustainability science with profound implications for global sustainable development. They have revealed effects of metacoupling on the performance, synergies, and trade-offs of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across borders and across local to global scales; untangled complex interactions; identified new network attributes; unveiled spatio-temporal dynamics and effects of metacoupling; uncovered invisible feedbacks across metacoupled systems; expanded the nexus approach; detected and integrated hidden phenomena and overlooked issues; re-examined theories such as Tobler's First Law of Geography; and unfolded transformations among noncoupling, coupling, decoupling, and recoupling. Results from the applications are also helpful to achieve SDGs across space, amplify benefits of ecosystem restoration across boundaries and across scales, augment transboundary management, broaden spatial planning, boost supply chains, empower small agents in the large world, and shift from place-based to flow-based governance. Key topics for future research include cascading effects of an event in one place on other places both nearby and far away. Operationalizing the framework can benefit from further tracing flows across scales and space, uplifting the rigor of causal attribution, enlarging toolboxes, and elevating financial and human resources. Unleashing the full potential of the framework will generate more important scientific discoveries and more effective solutions for global justice and sustainable development.

Ecological water, a new focus of China's water management

Water set aside for environmental purposes is now the fastest-growing category of water use in China. Since 2000 this 'ecological water' (EcoW) has grown to make up 5 % of the total water allocation (around 30 billion m³ of water). This paper provides the first substantial review of the history, definition, and policy rationale for EcoW in China, and allows us to compare the Chinese program with elsewhere. As in most countries, the growth in EcoW is a response to the over-allocation of water, and a recognition of the broader values of aquatic systems. In contrast to other countries, most EcoW is still allocated to support human values more than natural values. The earliest, and most celebrated EcoW projects, were directed at reducing dust pollution from arid zone rivers affecting northern China. In other countries, most environmental water is clawed back from other users in a catchment (usually irrigators) and is then delivered as a quasi-natural flow regime from a dam. These sorts of environmental flows from dams do occur in China, represented by the EcoW diversion in the Heihe River Basin and the Yellow River Basin. By contrast, the largest EcoW programs do not replace existing uses. Instead, they augment flows through large interbasin transfers. The largest and fastest-growing EcoW program in China is on the North China Plain (NCP) based on excess water available from the South-North Water Transfer project. To illustrate the complexity of EcoW projects in China, we describe in more detail two case studies, the well-established arid-zone Heihe EcoW program and the newer Jin-Jin-Ji EcoW program on the NCP. Overall, ecological water allocation in China reflects a major development in water management in that country and a growing shift toward more holistic water management.

Untangling the interactions among the Sustainable Development Goals in China

Understanding the interactions (synergies and trade-offs) among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is crucial for enhancing policy coherence between different sectors. However, spatial differences in the SDG interactions and their temporal variations at the sub-national scale are still critical gaps that need to be urgently filled. Here, we assess the spatial and temporal variation of the SDG interactions in China based on the systematic classification framework of SDGs. The framework groups the seventeen SDGs into three categories, namely "Essential Needs", "Objectives", and "Governance". Spatially, we found that the SDGs in "Essential Needs" & "Objectives" and "Essential Needs" & "Governance" generally show trade-offs in the eastern provinces of China. Synergies among all three SDG categories are observed in some central and western China provinces, which implies that these regions conform to sustainable development patterns. In addition, temporally, the synergies of the three SDG categories have shown a weakening trend in the last decade, mainly due to the regional differences in the progress of SDG7 (Affordable and Clean Energy). Overall, our results identify the necessity for provinces to enhance the synergies between SDG12 (Responsible Production and Consumption) and other SDGs to tackle the trade-offs between the "Essential Needs" and "Objectives". Meanwhile, promoting the progress of SDG7 will also contribute to balanced development across provinces.

Multiple stressors and social-ecological traps in Pampean streams (Argentina): A conceptual model

Fluvial systems are particularly sensitive to changes in the terrestrial ecosystems where they are embedded, receiving simultaneously the impact of multiple stressors. The design of adequate management policies requires analyzing fluvial systems as social-ecological systems, because the decoupling of natural and social systems can lead to a severe mismatch between maintaining ecological integrity and the pursuit of human well-being. Pampean streams are especially prone to the impact of human activities because they are located in a region that provides almost half of the agricultural production of Argentina and concentrates 66% of the whole population of the country. In the present work, we conceived a general social-ecological framework that links the occurrence of multiple stressors and their impacts on ecosystem services, with changes in environmental perception of streams, which in turn feedback over institutional actions at the watershed's governance. We identified four current key drivers of the dynamics in Pampean streams: a dominant agro-industrial model for the region, a command-and-control governance regime mainly based on an engineering hydraulic perspective, the real estate market speculation of surrounding lands, and the persistence of structural poverty in urban areas. The resulting dynamics resembles the occurrence of different kinds of social-ecological traps, i.e., a highly stable but undesirable state of the system that is difficult to escape. Based on this analysis, we provide a leverage point perspective to avoid this trap. Together, this approach could be applied to other fluvial systems of the world to link the ecological and social domains to multiple stressors analysis, and to improve institutional fit for the sustainability of fluvial social-ecological systems.

Global Marine Fishing across Space and Time

Human health and livelihoods are threatened by declining marine fisheries catches, causing substantial interest in the sources and dynamics of fishing. Catch analyses in individual exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and the high seas are abundant, and research across multiple EEZs is growing. However, no previous studies have systematically compared catches, intranational versus international fish flows, and fishing nations within all of the world’s EEZs and across adjacent and distant EEZs and the high seas to inform “metacoupled” fisheries management. We use the metacoupling framework—a new approach for evaluating human–nature interactions within and across adjacent and distant systems (metacouplings)—to illustrate how fisheries catches were locally, regionally, and globally interconnected in 1950–2014, totaling 5.8 billion metric tons and increasing by 298% (tonnage) and 431% (monetary value) over this time period. Catches by nations in their own EEZs (largest in Peru) and adjacent EEZs (largest in Indonesia) constituted 86% of worldwide catches, growing in 1950–1996 but declining in 1997–2014. In contrast, catches in distant EEZs and the high seas—largest in Morocco, Mauritania, and Canada—peaked in 1973 and have since represented 9–21% of annual catches. Our 65-year, local–regional–global analysis illustrates how metacoupled fisheries governance—holistic management of multiscalar catches, flows, and tradeoffs within and among fisheries—can improve food and nutrition security, livelihood resilience, and biodiversity conservation across the world.

A Metacoupling Framework for Exploring Transboundary Watershed Management

Water is crucial for ecosystem health and socioeconomic development, but water scarcity is becoming a global concern. Management of transboundary watersheds is inherently challenging and has the potential to lead to conflict over the allocation of water resources. The metacoupling framework, which explores the relationships between coupled human and natural systems that are nested within multiple different scales, has been proposed to inform more holistic management of transboundary watersheds. This paper provides the first attempt to apply a metacoupling framework to a transboundary watershed for an improved integrated understanding of this complex system at multiple spatial scales. It does so with the transnational Limpopo River watershed in Southern Africa, which covers 1.3% of the continent and supports the livelihoods of 18.8 million people living in Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing a growing gap between water availability and demand; the primary drivers are population growth and agriculture expansion. The novelty of the paper is outlining the importance of applying a metacoupling framework to transboundary watersheds, identifying the limitations to this application, and providing a detailed assessment of the steps needed to complete this application. We also identify directions for future research including application of a metacoupling framework to other transboundary watersheds and exploration of spillover effects and externalities within this and other transboundary watersheds.

Did water diversion projects lead to sustainable ecological restoration in arid endorheic basins? Lessons from long-term changes of multiple ecosystem indicators in the lower Heihe River Basin

Ecological water diversion projects (EWDPs) are crucial for dryland ecosystem restoration in arid endorheic basins. Comprehensive and in-depth evaluations of ecological effects and especially the potential risks of EWDPs on long-term ecosystem changes were limited in previous studies. In this study, spatio-temporal variations in multiple indicators (land use/cover, landscape pattern and vegetation cover) derived from Landsat images were integrated to detect ecosystem changes from 1990 to 2015 in the lower Heihe River Basin (HRB), China, where an EWDP was conducted by the Chinese government in 2000. The results showed that the EWDP prevented ecological degradation and effectively restored the arid oasis ecosystem. From 2000 to 2010, the transformation from unused land to natural vegetation and wetlands, was the major land use/cover change; the degree of landscape fragmentation decreased, and the regional normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) increased significantly. However, the EWDP did not restore the ecosystem to the status in 1990, and some vegetation degradation occurred after 2010, with approximately 38% of the study area showing significant decrease in NDVI. Human interventions, especially overexpansion of cultivated oases, which restricted ecological water use, and construction of artificial canals, which reduced groundwater recharge, resulted in the browning trend from 2010 to 2015. Therefore, the EWDPs did not definitely lead to sustainable ecological restoration and ecosystem development. The quantification results can provide significant implications for water resources management and ecosystem planning to prevent ecological degradation in the study area. The multi-indicator method with long-term and high-resolution dataset used here can be adapted to other arid regions for comprehensively evaluating the ecological restoration ability of the EWDP.